1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of geographical data analysis and more particularly, to a geographically based analysis of human speech.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Certain physiological and psychological conditions are known to affect human speech. For example, a nasal voice can indicate a nasal congestion or blockage of the nasal passages often resulting from cold or influenza. Coughs of different kinds may indicate a variety of respiratory related diseases. Similarly, changes in prosody such as the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech may provide information regarding the psychological condition of the speaker.
With global monitoring of public health being an ongoing challenge, there have been several attempts to use speech analysis for deriving valuable information regarding the health of human speakers from their respective speech signals. Such attempts are known to suggest the use of speech analysis in order to deduce the physiological or psychological condition of a human speaker either by detecting particular keywords indicating a specific condition, or by studying the relations between speech signal characteristics and various mental and physical conditions.